


it's not just a shadow, but a life I left behind

by suzukiblu



Series: mad elephants [6]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alpha Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe, Angst, Blackwatch Era, Blackwatch Reaper | Gabriel Reyes, Coming Out, Family Dinners, Fantasy Gender Roles, Gen, Infertility, M/M, Memories, Omega Jesse McCree, Omega Reaper | Gabriel Reyes, Parent-Child Relationship, Strike-Commander Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison, Training, Young Jesse McCree, house arrest, reference to past physical abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-05-14 11:41:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19272559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suzukiblu/pseuds/suzukiblu
Summary: It’s been a week of house arrest in this Overwatch base, and Overwatch is either playing the long game or under aterriblemisassumption, and Jesse ain’t sure which would be worse.





	1. Chapter 1

“Show me what you can do,” Reyes says as he gestures at the empty gym, which Jesse can almost pretend is normal. Ain’t like he’s never been asked that question before. 

Usually it ain’t by someone telling him he’s his _mother_ , mind. He’s not in supermax right now, though, which is the only reason he might believe it. 

At least, believes _Reyes_ might believe it, crazy as it is. 

It’s been a week of house arrest in this Overwatch base, and Overwatch is either playing the long game or under a _terrible_ misassumption, and Jesse ain’t sure which would be worse. He don’t know how you’d botch something as simple as a DNA test, though, so he’s still erring on the side of the long game. He just can’t figure out what that long game could possibly be. If they want him to help them bring in the rest of Deadlock, well, there’s easier ways to do that. Definitely ones that’d be easier to believe. 

They gave him a _room_. One without bars on the door, even. He really ain’t managed to process that yet. 

“I can do a lot, old man,” he says. “What did you have in mind?” 

“All of it,” Reyes says, brisk and professional. “We’ll start with the weights.” 

“Sure,” Jesse says, because apparently this is the world he lives in now, the one where he’s wearing Overwatch-issued sweats and being bossed around by _Gabriel goddamn Reyes_. He’s been looking for a way to sneak out, but the ankle monitor’s interfering a bit with that one. Morrison didn’t seem thrilled about putting it on him, but Reyes was all for it, which also makes it very hard for Jesse to believe he’s actually their kin, much less their _pup_. 

He tries to imagine anyone ever calling Reyes “Mom” and nearly laughs at the thought. He’s probably the kind of parent who expects “ma’am”. 

They go over to the weights. Reyes sets up the barbell while Jesse watches in mystification, really not sure how this is supposed to work. He’s never lifted a weight in his _life_ , except one time when he smashed a grabby foster brother’s hand with a five-pound dumbbell. He’s pretty sure this is gonna be different. 

“I have no idea how to do this,” he says frankly, and Reyes gives him a strange look. This is what he gets for cutting all those gym classes, he figures. 

“It’s not hard,” Reyes says, and proceeds to show him the process. Jesse remains mystified by the whole point of it, but figures it’s still better than prison. Although working out is a thing they do a lot of in prison, from what he’s heard. 

At least his door don’t lock from the outside. And the food’s pretty good, too. 

Jesse attempts the weight-lifting, not expecting much from himself. He sure as hell ain’t gonna make it look as smooth and effortless as Reyes did, he knows _that_. The bar’s lighter than it looks, which is some small mercy, but he’s still sure his form is shit. Reyes puts more weight on and makes him do it again, and then again, and then one more time until Jesse is _convinced_ —

“That ain’t happening, old man,” he says, just _eyeing_ the weights Reyes just put on. 

“Humor me,” Reyes says. 

“If I drop this damn bar it’ll _kill_ me,” Jesse says. He’s already a sweaty mess, he don’t see why Reyes wants him to keep struggling. 

“That’s why I’m spotting you,” Reyes says dubiously, like he thinks Jesse has any reason to believe he’d actually bother helping him if shit went south. Unfortunately: ankle monitor. 

“Goddammit,” Jesse grunts, and lifts the bar. It’s not _quite_ as bad as he was expecting, but he only makes it through a few reps before his arms try to give out and he _quickly_ puts it back on the rack. 

“Hn,” Reyes says. 

“You satisfied?” Jesse says. 

“Treadmill,” Reyes says, jerking his head towards the other side of the gym, which Jesse assumes means “no”. The bastard makes him run for a goddamn _hour_ , which is just _inhuman_. Jesse’s tempted to spend the time complaining, since they might as well both be miserable, but then Reyes might make it longer. 

“Can I smoke in here?” he asks afterwards, after he’s mostly caught his breath again. His legs feel like jelly, and he thinks he’d like to stay on the floor for the rest of the morning. Reyes sighs. 

“No,” he says, then drags him up off the mats and makes him climb the rock-climbing wall all the way to the damn ceiling. _Twice_. Jesse was not previously aware he could be both so bored and so exhausted at the same time, but apparently he’s managing it. They go through a few more pieces of equipment, each one more boring and exhausting than the last, and Reyes is exactly as merciless about every single one. Jesse does his best, mostly, because he don’t wanna go to prison, but it’s very, very fucking boring. Also, stupid. Why the hell does Reyes need to know how bad he is at all this? 

Alright, so he gives up a little sooner than necessary on a few things. In his defense: _so many things_. 

“You don’t work out normally?” Reyes asks. 

“Partner, I ain’t seen the inside of a gym since _middle_ school,” Jesse says wryly. 

“Hm,” Reyes says again, and then makes him run another lap around the gym, the _sadist_. Afterwards, he gives him a bottle of some sports drink or another and lets him sit down, so Jesse supposes that’s supposed to be some kinda reward. The drink could taste better, mind. 

Reyes makes some notes on a datapad. Jesse drinks the whole gross drink, because he is thirsty as hell and beggars can’t be choosers. Reyes puts away the datapad, and glances over to him. 

“How long were you running with Deadlock?” he asks. 

“Long enough,” Jesse says with an easy shrug. 

“Your room alright?” Reyes cocks his head. 

“Sure,” Jesse says, genuinely baffled to be asked. 

“When’s your next heat?” Reyes asks. 

“Two weeks,” Jesse says, since _that_ definitely ain’t something he wants to be evasive about. His heats don’t affect him like most people’s, but they definitely affect the people _around_ him. He don’t wanna have to deal with a bunch of Overwatch knotheads sniffing around. 

He really hopes he’s not gonna have to deal with that, at least. 

How much does Overwatch know about him, anyway? Do they know his heats ain’t right? He assumes not, since Reyes bothered asking, but who knows. Ain’t no reason they wouldn’t have gone through his medical files, sparse as those might be. 

“The infirmary has designated heat rooms,” Reyes says. 

“I don’t need that,” Jesse says, making a face at the thought. He don’t wanna spend his heat stuck bored out of his mind in someone else’s territory. Not that he’ll be any less bored in the room—there ain’t nothing in there but bedsheets and his leathers—but at least the room smells like his. “The door locks, yeah? I’ll be good.” 

“Unsupervised?” Reyes says dubiously. Yeah, they definitely don’t know about his heats. Jesse debates if he should bother, but figures they’ll find out eventually anyway. If they’re playing the long game, two weeks ain’t that long. 

“Yeah,” he says. “I’m infertile. I don’t get heats like normal.” 

“You’re—what?” Reyes’ expression turns strange. Jesse shrugs again. It don’t matter none to him. 

“Infertile,” he repeats. 

“What happened?” Reyes asks, and Jesse wrinkles his nose at him. 

“Nothing,” he says. “I just am.” 

Reyes looks—troubled, almost, which is just _hilarious_. Jesse considers making a crack about grandpups, but so far avoiding mentioning the supposed mother thing has been working out the best for them, and he’d really rather not break the streak. Or end up in a screaming match with, again, _Gabriel goddamn Reyes_. Just, naw, miss him with that. 

“Seriously, can I smoke?” he says. “I’m _dying_ here.” 

“You shouldn’t smoke,” Reyes says. Jesse gives him an incredulous look. Reyes actually looks embarrassed for a second, then folds his arms with a scowl. “Get up. We’re going to the range.” 

“The range?” Jesse perks up despite himself. 

“You can shoot, can’t you?” Reye says, raising an eyebrow at him. 

“I wouldn’t be much use if I couldn’t,” Jesse says wryly, rolling to his feet and following his semi-jailor out of the gym. Frankly he’d rather have a shower and a nap and a cigar, but he’ll settle for a target. He can’t imagine Reyes’ll trust him with a _real_ gun, or at least not real bullets, but he ain’t picky. Long as he gets to shoot something, that’s fine with him. 

Overwatch’s range, it turns out, is a lot fancier than shooting tin cans off a post. No surprise there, really, but it’s still a damn sight to see. It looks more like an obstacle course than a gun range. 

“Here,” Reyes says, handing him—unsurprisingly—a glorified paintball gun. Jesse inspects it automatically, same as he would any weapon he’d got his hands on, and it’s pretty damn impressive for what it is. If he’d been guessing, he would’ve expected something more along the lines of laser tag, but he prefers shooting something with a real kick anyway. 

At least, he assumes a paintball gun’ll have a real kick. Ain’t like he’s particularly experienced with the things. 

“What do I shoot?” he asks, and Reyes calls up a goddamn _intimidating_ amount of bots. “Jesus!” 

“I’m not expecting you to nail all of them,” Reyes says. “Obviously.” 

“Obviously,” Jesse agrees, his trigger finger already itching. He thinks about showing Reyes Deadeye, but he’d really rather keep that one in his back pocket. Ain’t no reason to go around telling Overwatch things they don’t know, at least not about anything like that. 

“I want headshots. Do your best,” Reyes says, then steps back and folds his arms expectantly. Jesse looks at him, then the gun, then the bots. The bots start glowing. 

They start _advancing_. 

“Uh,” Jesse says, and then everything gets _real exciting_ for the next five minutes. He ain’t shot that fast in _months_. 

Reyes don’t so much as give him a “good job” when all is said and done, which, hell, even _Ashe_ woulda done that. Jesse might not be the most talented son of a bitch, but he knows damn well he’s good with guns. 

Apparently that runs in the family, he thinks with morbid amusement. 

“What’s your thing?” Reyes asks, kicking one of the downed, paint-spattered training bots aside as he approaches him. 

“My thing?” Jesse raises his eyebrows at him. 

“Yeah,” Reyes says. “There’s something you can do that nobody else can, right? Something that isn’t normal?” 

“I am perfectly normal, in fact,” Jesse says. 

“Not according to your aptitude tests,” Reyes snorts, and Jesse grimaces. He knew he was gonna flunk those damn things. “You’re an SEP brat. There’s something you can do. Something special.” 

“Can’t say as there is,” Jesse says, a bit mystified by the question. He’s a fair sight better with a gun than most people, but there’s nothing _special_ about him. Anybody could do what he does, with some work. 

Well. Maybe not Deadeye, it occurs to him. But he doubts that’s what Reyes is talking about. Deadeye’s just a trick he figured out, after all, not something special. Probably anybody _could_ learn it. 

Not that he’s intending to be _teaching_ anybody, mind. He’s only got so many tricks. 

“Every SEP kid has something,” Reyes says. He looks irritated. Maybe he thinks he’s lying, but Jesse don’t much see the point. If there were something like that, it’d probably have been written down in one of his files years ago anyway, and it ain’t like Overwatch don’t have those. 

“I suppose I’m just a disappointment, then,” he says with a shrug. He’s a criminal and a dropout who gets more spun for O’s than A’s and can’t whelp; he’s pretty sure any parent would be disappointed, one way or another. 

Reyes gets a strange look on his face, one Jesse can’t place, and he keeps a wary eye on the man, waiting for the fallout of whatever it is. 

“There’s something. Even if you don’t know what it is,” Reyes says, clearly struggling with—something. Jesse keeps that wary eye on him, because who knows how that’s gonna shake out. “Haven’t weird things happened around you before?” 

“Well, last week two international heroes arrested me and told me I was their pup,” Jesse drawls, because he never _could_ keep his fool mouth shut for long. “That was a mite unusual.” 

Reyes scowls. Jesse raises an eyebrow at him. 

“We’re having dinner in our quarters tonight,” Reyes says. “At six.” 

“Congratulations?” Jesse says, mystified. Reyes’ scowl deepens. 

“You’re coming,” he says, like it should be obvious. Jesse cannot think of a less obvious thing this side of anywhere. 

“Why?” he asks in bemusement. Reyes don’t scowl any less. 

“Because I said so,” he says, and Jesse laughs. God _damn_ , has it been a while since an adult pulled that one on him. 

“And if I don’t?” he says. 

“Then we’re doing double the gym time tomorrow,” Reyes says. Jesse makes a face. Now that ain’t hardly fair. 

“Fine,” he sighs, not seeing much point in kicking up a fuss. Reyes wants to have the most awkward dinner on God’s green earth, he can have it. “So where the hell are your quarters, then?” 

The answer, it turns out, is “a hell of a lot closer to Jesse’s than he wanted to know”, which just fucking figures. Here he thought the bunks around his were so quiet and antisocial because it was where Overwatch kept the unsavory elements; turns out it’s just where the commanding officers sleep. He wonders if they’d move him somewhere else, if he asked. Probably not, but he’s still tempted to try. He kind of wants to see how much rope they’ll give him, even if it’s only to hang himself with. 

Reyes lets him go, mercifully, and Jesse immediately goes outside for a smoke. Well, as outside as the ankle monitor will let him get, which is pretty much just “halfway out the nearest window”. As long as he keeps the ankle monitor itself in the building, he’s fine. He is _literally_ gonna die of vitamin D deficiency at this point, though. 

He smokes his cigarette, then heads back to his room, gets a shower—because the rooms have _showers_ , go goddamn figure—and gets back into his leathers, because he ain’t wearing Overwatch-issued _anything_ to this dinner. They can make him go; they can’t make him pretend he’s somebody he’s not. 

Even if he actually is their pup, he thinks it’s pretty clear he ain’t the kind of pup people like Jack Morrison and _Gabriel goddamn Reyes_ would want. Might as well make the point now, before they get any other ideas into their fool heads. Maybe he’ll come out over the entrees and see if that ruins the meal. That’d be a mercy. 

Maybe if he just fucks up enough, they’ll _have_ some mercy and send him off to supermax after all. 

It’s probably unhealthy that he’s thinking of that as merciful, given he’d probably last about five minutes in prison. 

He puts on his hat, eyes himself balefully in the mirror, and goes to dinner at six on the dot. Morrison opens the door, which is something of a relief, and the damn room smells _delicious_ , which is just . . . weird, frankly. Did they actually cook? 

“Evening, sir,” he says, tipping his hat. Seems like the time to be mannerly. 

“Hello, Jesse,” Morrison says, stepping back to let him in. Their quarters are a lot bigger than his, with a separate living room and a little kitchenette; more like an apartment than a bunk. Sure enough, there’s pots on the stove. Jesse wonders which one of them cooked. If it’s Reyes, he ain’t sure it won’t be poisoned. 

It does smell _damn_ good, for potential poison. 

“Thank you for your hospitality,” he says, taking off his hat—because again, mannerly. It’s a lot easier to be mannerly with Morrison. He ain’t quite so . . . _intense_ , Jesse supposes is the word. 

“Take a seat,” Morrison says, gesturing towards the small table in the center of the kitchen. “Do you want something to drink?” 

“Water, thank you kindly,” Jesse says, figuring that even if they have it “whiskey” ain’t gonna be an acceptable answer. He tries to figure out where the safest place to sit is, but the table unfortunately ain’t set yet, so who the hell knows. He finally gives up and just takes the seat closest to the door, for easy escape. Just in case, and all. 

Morrison brings him a glass of water. Jesse honestly has no idea what to do about it. 

“Where’s Reyes?” he asks, for lack of a better idea. 

“Something came up,” Morrison says, not particularly illuminatingly. “He’ll be back in a minute.” 

“Right,” Jesse says. He takes a drink of water. Morrison . . . hovers, kind of, and then seems to catch himself and heads over to the stove to hover there instead. Jesse appreciates the mindfulness, though it don’t really help. He feels hovered over anyway, like he’s the only thing Morrison’s looking at. 

He’s pretty sure he _is_ the only thing Morrison’s looking at, so . . . 

“Thanks for coming,” Morrison says. 

“Didn’t see as I had much choice,” Jesse says. Morrison pauses, then sighs. 

“Of course,” he mutters under his breath, then turns back towards Jesse and fixes him with an unnervingly serious look that makes all his hackles go up. “You do have a choice. We aren’t going to force you to do things.” 

“Really, because I spent the day getting run ragged by Reyes and then got threatened to dinner,” Jesse says dubiously. Morrison sighs again. 

“He just . . . doesn’t know what to do about you yet,” he says. “He’ll settle.” 

“That man don’t strike me as the type to ‘settle’,” Jesse says, and Morrison gives him a wry smile. 

“He’ll get used to you,” he says. “How’s your room?” 

“Fine,” Jesse says. This is already the longest conversation he’s ever had with Morrison, so he don’t rightly know what else to say. The place could be actively on _fire_ and he’d probably say that. 

“That’s good,” Morrison says. “Is there anything you need?” 

“. . . no?” Jesse says, squinting at him in confusion. Aside from this ankle monitor off and an unsupervised truck he can hotwire, anyway, but he’s assuming that ain’t what Morrison had in mind. “Not unless you got a box of cigars I can have.” 

“You’re too young to smoke,” Morrison says. Jesse laughs. It’s kind of hard not to. 

“You arrested me for _gun running_ ,” he reminds him. 

“You’re still seventeen,” Morrison says, which is not actually a thing Jesse knew for sure before. Who knows if the birthday in his file is right, after all, or just something some lazy social worker scribbled in off the top of their head. 

Aside from Morrison and Reyes, apparently. 

“Don’t rightly see how that matters,” Jesse says, like being seventeen is just a thing he knew about himself and not one he’s been guessing. His various fake IDs put him anywhere from eighteen to twenty-five, and he knows he’s passed for a full-grown adult since his last growth spurt. 

“Humor us,” Morrison says, and Jesse makes a face and takes another drink of water. He’s been scrounging smokes where he could get ‘em, but that’s only gonna last so long and he ain’t looking forward to running out. He’s got enough problems right now without adding nic fits to the list. 

“I don’t find it particularly funny, myself,” he says, and Morrison lets out a soft huff of a laugh and looks at the stove. He don’t touch nothing on it, though, so Jesse’s suspecting it’s Reyes who was cooking after all. Hopefully he’ll survive the evening, though if the food don’t kill him the conversation might. 

This is going to be a mighty awkward meal, that much’s for sure. 

They wait there in silence for a while, and Jesse drinks his water. Ain’t much else to do, under the circumstances. Morrison keeps half an eye on the stove and half an eye on him, which feels a bit like when teachers used to watch him expecting trouble, no matter what he did or didn’t do. He don’t know if Morrison’s expecting trouble or not, but somebody probably should be. Again: he ain’t the kind of pup Morrison and Reyes would want. Definitely nothing like the kind they would’ve raised themselves, he’s sure. He ain’t a _pup_ anymore, just for starters. 

He really don’t know what they could possibly want from him. 

“More water?” Morrison says. 

“Thank you kindly,” Jesse says, because it’s something to do with himself. Morrison refills his glass, and he resolves to sip this one slower. Hopefully Reyes will show up soon and then . . . well, then things’ll probably be even more awkward, actually, but at least he’ll be that much closer to escaping this whole mess. 

“How are you liking the base?” Morrison asks, sitting down across from him. Jesse resists the urge to tense. 

“Better than a normal prison,” he says, stretching his leg out from under the table to show off the ankle monitor. “Still a mite confining, mind.” 

“Brass insisted,” Morrison says, dissatisfaction flickering through his expression. “We’ll get it off you as soon as we can.” 

“So, never?” Jesse says, because he can’t imagine anybody compromising on that one. 

“You’re a minor,” Morrison says. “They’re willing to give you a plea deal.” 

“I ain’t selling out the rest of Deadlock,” Jesse says. “They’ll have burned all our old haunts by now anyway.” 

“Gabe’s trying to get them to let us keep you,” Morrison says. “Given the alternative is us going public with the story of how the government lost our pup in the system and then _literally_ lost him, they’re being pretty accommodating.” 

“They didn’t lose me so much as I got myself lost,” Jesse says. “Required some effort on my part, and all.” 

“The court of public opinion won’t necessarily see it that way,” Morrison says. 

“I really do not want you telling the entire damn world I’m your kid,” Jesse says. For one thing, he’d never have goddamn peace _again_. 

A strange expression passes across Morrison’s face, but it’s too quick for Jesse to catch it. 

“It’s a last resort,” Morrison says. 

“I’d hope so,” Jesse says. Morrison gives him another strange look, quick and subtle, and it makes him a bit jittery. He’s still a damn sight less intense than Reyes, though, so Jesse ain’t gonna complain. Really, as long as he ain’t running laps around the dinner table, he ain’t gonna complain. 

“We want you to feel safe here,” Morrison says, and the laugh escapes before Jesse can stop it. But _safe_? He’s kidding, right? Morrison just absorbs it and keeps going, though. “If you don’t want us to tell anyone yet, we won’t.” 

“You already told all of Overwatch and the brass,” Jesse says. People on base have literally talked to him like Morrison and Reyes are his parents, which was a trip and a half. Morrison looks briefly embarrassed, but only briefly. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. “We weren’t thinking about how it would affect you, we just wanted to keep you out of prison.” 

“Not that I don’t appreciate the sentiment and all, but why do you even care?” Jesse says. “I ain’t exactly your pup anymore.” 

“You’ll always be our pup,” Morrison says, and actually sounds sincere about it, which is almost enough to make Jesse laugh again. “I don’t care how you’ve changed or what you do.” 

“I am in fact still a literal criminal, yes,” Jesse says. 

“I don’t care,” Morrison says. “I don’t even care if you come to dinner. You can hate me, as far as I’m concerned. You can never speak to me again. You’re _alive_.” 

“I am,” Jesse says, really not following the line of thought. “You realize how incredibly unbelievable this whole story is, right?” 

“I didn’t believe it either, before we ran the DNA test,” Morrison says. “Gabe knew you right away, but I thought he was imagining things.” 

“I still ain’t sure he _ain’t_ ,” Jesse says. 

“You don’t have to believe us,” Morrison says. “As long as you’re alive, that’s all I give a damn about. That’ll carry me the rest of my life.” 

He really does sound so goddamn _sincere_. And Jesse knows from liars. He’s an accomplished one himself, after all. 

“So what happens if I don’t believe you?” he asks, folding his arms. 

“Nothing,” Morrison says. “We’ll leave you alone until your house arrest is up, and then you can go wherever you want and do whatever you want.” 

“Really?” Jesse asks skeptically. “Even _Reyes_ will leave me alone?” 

“I’ll talk to him,” Morrison promises. 

“I don’t believe it’d work even if you did,” Jesse says, because Reyes _really_ don’t strike him as the type to be talked to. 

“He just—misses you,” Morrison says. “We’ve both missed you so much.” 

“I still ain’t that pup, no matter if I was before or not,” Jesse says warily. He’s still waiting for the catch, but the longer he talks to Morrison, the less sure he is it’s coming. It’s real damn clear why he’s the face of Overwatch, that’s for sure. 

“I don’t care,” Morrison says, and really does look so _much_ like he means it. 

“I used to watch you on the TV,” Jesse says after a moment, glancing towards the stove just for somewhere else to look. Morrison’s face is a little much, is all. “When I was a kid, I mean. I’d watch your speeches.” 

“You did?” Morrison sounds—fucking _hopeful_ , almost. 

“I liked your voice,” Jesse says. “That’s all.” 

“I’m sorry you were alone,” Morrison says in this fucking _soft_ voice like Jesse kind of hates. “It shouldn’t have happened.” 

“I mean, I was always gonna be, right?” Jesse says, shrugging dismissively. “I’m a single, ain’t I? Unless I’ve got some littermates you’re keeping in a closet somewhere, but I’d figure you’d’ve mentioned that by now.” 

“No, you were a single,” Morrison confirms. “SEP wasn’t exactly kind to our reproductive organs. We were lucky to have even just you.” 

“Huh,” Jesse says. He wonders if that’s why _he_ can’t whelp, though he guesses it don’t really matter anyway. Might explain why Reyes looked so funny when he told him he couldn’t, though. “Reyes said there were other SEP brats.” 

“One or two,” Morrison says. “Not many.” 

“He said they can do shit,” Jesse says. “That ain’t usual, I mean.” 

“That’s right.” Morrison nods. “Can you?” 

“No.” Jesse shakes his head. “I am entirely normal, I assure you.” 

“Not according to your aptitude tests,” Morrison says, and Jesse makes a face. Are they gonna hold those over his head forever? 

“I know I fucked those up, but come _on_ , cut a man a break,” he says. 

“You didn’t fuck them up,” Morrison says, giving him a puzzled look. “You tested in SEP percentiles. Same with the physical tests today.” 

“I what?” Jesse blinks at him. 

“You tested in SEP percentiles,” Morrison repeats. 

“I didn’t even finish junior _high_ ,” Jesse protests. 

“It’s about your aptitude, not your education,” Morrison says. “Do you want to go back to school? We could help you with that.” 

“Don’t much see the point,” Jesse says, a little uneasy. He passed those tests? Really? They were all so fucking weird, he’d been _sure_ he’d failed them. Maybe this is the long game, still. “I still can’t do nothing like he was asking about.” 

“We’re not worried about that,” Morrison says. 

“Reyes seemed to be,” Jesse says. 

“He’s worried about _you_ , if anything,” Morrison says. “It doesn’t matter how much SEP juice you did or didn’t get, as long as you’re alright.” 

“I am,” Jesse says. 

“Then that’s all that matters,” Morrison says. Jesse stares at him warily for a minute, not sure what to say to that. To . . . any of this, really. 

“I like O’s,” he blurts, and Morrison looks surprised. Jesse jiggles his leg against the floor, listening to his spurs, then abruptly stills it. He shoves his hands in his pockets. 

“You mean you’re gay,” Morrison says. 

“Yeah.” Jesse’s leg jiggles again; he jerks it to a stop again. His hands curl into fists inside his pockets. 

“We’re not worried about that either,” Morrison says. “Are you?” 

“No.” Jesse juts his chin out stubbornly, pushing his hands deeper into his pockets. Morrison looks at him for a long moment, then leans forward across the table and puts a hand on his shoulder, which nearly makes him jump a mile. 

“We just want you to be okay,” Morrison says in that soft voice Jesse fucking _hates_ , squeezing his shoulder. “Nothing else matters.” 

“Well, I am,” Jesse says. Morrison drops his hand, mercifully. Jesse thinks about making for the door, but with his luck he’d run right into Reyes anyway. He don’t know what else to do, though. 

“Do you have someone?” Morrison says, and Jesse snorts derisively. Well, at least it’s a less uncomfortable topic. 

“Do I look like the type to have somebody, Morrison?” he asks. 

“I’ll take that as a no,” Morrison says. He don’t grimace when Jesse calls him “Morrison”, he notices. Reyes always seems to grimace when he says his name. Which, well, he ain’t gonna start calling them anything else, that’s for sure. 

“That’s a no,” he agrees. 

“Well, if you ever do, feel free to bring them around,” Morrison says. Jesse snorts again at the idea, because there is a whole _mess_ of reasons that won’t ever happen, but Morrison don’t seem bothered. 

“Maybe,” Jesse says, because for some dumb reason he don’t wanna outright say no. “Maybe” is basically the same thing anyway, so good enough. Morrison smiles at him, which might be the weirdest thing that’s happened all day, and puts his hand on his shoulder again. 

“Thank you for telling me,” he says, and Jesse . . . he feels like an idiot doing it, like he’s fucking _new_ or something, but Jesse smiles back. Just a bit. Like an idiot. 

The door opens. They both look towards it automatically, and Reyes is standing there with a real weird look on his face. 

“Gabe,” Morrison says. He lets Jesse shrug his hand off quick, and pulls it back to himself. 

“Jack,” Reyes says, voice flat. He walks straight over to the stove and starts fucking around with the pots with a vengeance. Jesse, like usual, has no idea what to think of the man. 

“Everything alright?” Morrison says carefully. 

“Fine,” Reyes says. “Just some idiots being idiots. Nothing I couldn’t handle.” 

“Okay,” Morrison says. He’s watching Reyes even closer than he was watching Jesse before, which Jesse would not previously have thought was possible. 

Whatever the fuck the guy’s cooking really does smell goddamn _divine_ , but he ain’t gonna say that out loud. He wonders what it is, but he ain’t gonna ask either. He ain’t rightly sure what to say with Reyes in the room, honestly. Even the idea of small talk seems awkward. Reyes don’t have the patience for too much of the stuff, he expects. 

There’s probably something he could ask about all those tests Reyes hadn’t actually told him were tests, he supposes, but he’ll be damned if he can think of anything aside from why the things were even necessary to begin with. 

Morrison gets up and sets the table. Jesse pretends to be absolutely _fascinated_ by his glass of water, and don’t think too much past that. 

He don’t even remember his parents, really. Vague impressions of a pale blond A and a darker O who’d felt different from his foster parents, but he’s never known if those were _really_ his parents or just some nicer fosters he’d gotten confused about. He couldn’t even say what they’d smelled like, now. 

He has some vague memories. Some laughter, some delight, some pain, and those same two barely-defined adults being there through all of it. He remembers a very specific living room and a teddy bear and one time he climbed the kitchen counter and getting yelled at for running off in the mall and silly things like that, but nothing _useful_ —not his parents’ actual scents or faces, not anything that could clarify this situation one way or the other. 

Not anything that would let him know better, or let him believe. 

He remembers blood, and explosions, and somebody telling him to run. 

But that _definitely_ ain’t gonna clear up the situation. 

“We know this is a lot for you,” Morrison says quietly as he sets the last fork on the table. Reyes don’t say anything. “It’s alright if you don’t know what to think yet.” 

“I don’t think anything,” Jesse says. It ain’t a lie, precisely. There’s just too goddamn _much_ to really think about. He’s laid awake three nights out of the last four trying to make sense of all this, looking for the trap or trick, and Morrison just says a couple nice things to him and he ain’t . . . he don’t . . . 

He don’t know. 

“That’s alright too,” Morrison says, and again, of _course_ he’s the face of Overwatch. 

“Food’s ready,” Reyes says as he opens the oven, blunt and brusque. Jesse thinks it’s a relief. It breaks the mood, anyway. Morrison takes the plates over to him and Reyes fills them up with enough rice and tamales and some stuff he don’t even recognize to feed a horse. The portion sizes are ridiculous but he guesses Reyes and Morrison need to keep up all that muscle mass somehow. Jesse’s pretty sure he’s hungry enough to eat it all either way, especially with how good it smells. 

Morrison puts down a plate in front of him and sits down kitty-corner to him, and Reyes sits down across from him. Jesse kinda wishes it were the reverse. They all just sit there for a minute, Jesse not really wanting to eat before the other two do, and then Morrison finally takes a bite of rice and he figures, okay, they wouldn’t _really_ poison him. They still want something out of him, after all, whatever that something might be. 

He still can’t decide if he believes them or not, but it ain’t comforting how back and forth his mind is on the subject. 

Jesse takes a bite off his plate, and it is fucking _delicious_. Because he is an accomplished liar and sitting down to dinner with Jack Morrison and Gabriel goddamn Reyes, he does _not_ say anything about that or act weird about it, even though it might just be the best bite of food he’s ever put in his mouth. The idea that Reyes cooks is weird enough; the idea he cooks this _good_ is even weirder. 

Some of it tastes a little familiar, some part of him thinks, though he can’t place where he’s had it before. 

He wants to gulp it all down and go back for seconds, honestly, but he eats in careful, methodical bites, and so does Morrison. Reyes barely touches his food. The silence hangs over the table like a guillotine blade, and Jesse ain’t gonna be the one to flip the lever. It’s asking for trouble, in his opinion. 

“Is this Alé’s recipe?” Morrison asks. Reyes grunts. Jesse thinks about asking who “Alé” is, but still don’t feel comfortable talking. 

Then again, since when has he cared about that kind of shit? 

“Who’s Alé?” he asks. 

“Your grandmother,” Morrison says. “Gabe’s mother. He used to watch you when you were little.” 

“Sure,” Jesse says, because obviously he has no idea about or memory of that. He takes another bite of rice, and it’s still real damn good. He don’t know much about cooking himself aside from the basics, and he ain’t all that great at those. He’d burned the last pot of rice he tried to make. Ashe had about laughed her head off, and then they’d gone out and eaten someplace way too fancy instead, because Ashe was like that. 

“Your grandfather’s name is Rafi,” Morrison says. “And my parents are Harold and Darlene.” 

_“Darlene?”_ Jesse can’t help repeating skeptically. 

“You’ve got aunts and uncles. And cousins, too,” Morrison says. Jesse cannot imagine the concept. “We named you after your great-grandmother. Jessica. Your uncle was pretty annoyed we beat her to it, so she named all her pups after her too anyway.” 

“You’re kidding, right?” Jesse asks. Morrison don’t look particularly like he’s kidding, though. 

“Jessa, Jesselia, Jessinda, and Jesus,” he says. 

“You’re _kidding_ ,” Jesse says again. Morrison still don’t look like he’s kidding. 

“When Jael gets an idea in her head, she sees it through,” he says with a shrug. “They’re all in high school now. Their mother Rico was . . . you were with him, when we lost you. He died in the attack.” 

“I don’t remember that,” Jesse says. The attack, yeah, bits and pieces all in hyper-focus, but not anybody being with him. Mostly what he remembers is all the blood and the running and a lot of tears and terror. Not his most shining moment, but since he was two or three he figures he can forgive himself for the display. 

First time he’d ever seen a dead body, too. He definitely remembers _that_ part. 

“You were very young,” Morrison says. “It’s not surprising you wouldn’t.” 

“What _do_ you remember?” Reyes asks, as forever the too-intense one. 

“Nothing,” Jesse says, because what he remembers pretty much amounts to that. The little bits and pieces, they don’t add up to anything. A living room, some faceless strangers, some toys and games, some snatches of songs; the feeling of being _safe_ , which ain’t a thing he’s felt since. But “a tea party with Elmo” ain’t the kind of answer Reyes is looking for, obviously. He wants Jesse to look at him and say “you”. 

He could, obviously. He’s a damn good liar, and they’ve given him more than enough to work with. But it ain’t true, and he ain’t gonna pretend. 

Reyes don’t look too pleased with his answer, no surprise. Morrison looks . . . resigned, a bit. Morrison seems to be handling his resignation better than Reyes is handling his displeasure, though. 

“Nothing?” Reyes presses, leaning forward. “You don’t remember anything from before you were in the system?” 

“Answer ain’t gonna change just because you ask me twice,” Jesse says, just barely resisting the tell that would be letting his eyes flick towards the door. “I was what, two? Not really an age most people remember, I’d expect.” 

“Three,” Reyes says. “And you were an SEP brat.” 

“So?” Jesse shrugs. He’d really rather be eating. Or headed out the door. “We already established I ain’t much of one.” 

“So you keep saying,” Reyes says. He looks irritated; frustrated. He’s too easy to rile up, Jesse thinks. Maybe that’s just the situation, though. He guesses it’d be irritating, from his side of things. 

“It was a long time ago, sweetheart,” Morrison says, voice not quite making it to gentle. Jesse attempts to process the fact Morrison just called Gabriel goddamn Reyes _“sweetheart”_ , but it ain’t processing. It especially ain’t processing because Reyes don’t bite his _head_ off for it. 

“Lots of people remember shit from that age,” Reyes says. 

“I ain’t one of ‘em, clearly,” Jesse says. Even if he remembered the age flawlessly, mind, he ain’t sure he’d wanna admit to it. The little scraps of memory he’s got, those are private things. He ain’t got much private in his life, especially not here. He don’t wanna go trotting it all out for Reyes just on his say-so. 

“We have pictures,” Reyes says. Jesse resists the instinctive twitch. This is getting to be too much. Coming here to _begin_ with was probably too much. He don’t wanna look at pictures of the dead pup they want him to be. 

“Gabe . . .” Morrison says. 

“You don’t want him to remember us?” Reyes demands. 

“He’s alive,” Morrison says. “That’s all I care about.” 

“I am partial to the condition myself,” Jesse says. Reyes scowls, though he can’t seem to decide which of them he’s scowling at. Jesse reflects, resignedly, that there is probably gonna be extra gym time tomorrow after all. 

He don’t really know what to do about this. If it’s some kind of long game, it’s making less and less sense. If it’s _real_ . . . well, he ain’t that pup, and he ain’t ever gonna be again. He’s goddamn grown, for one thing. Maybe it’d be different if they’d shown up five or ten years ago, but it ain’t five or ten years ago. 

Also, they never actually showed up. It’s more that he got dropped in their laps. 

“Do you take anything seriously?” Reyes says. 

“Not particularly,” Jesse says, and Reyes’ scowl darkens. Morrison reaches over towards him, maybe grabbing his hand or putting a hand on his thigh; Jesse can’t tell, with the table in the way. Reyes shakes it off, whatever it is. 

“We’re your _parents_ ,” he bites off, like it means something. Jesse can’t really figure out why it would, after fourteen goddamn years. 

“I don’t especially need any of those,” he says. 

“You’d be in _supermax_ right now without those!” Reyes snaps. 

“Gabe,” Morrison says. Reyes ignores him. 

“We kept you out of prison after you fucked up and got caught,” he says. “Is it so hard to have a real conversation with us?” 

“I didn’t ask to be kept outta prison, as I recall,” Jesse says. He wasn’t the one who fucked up and got them caught, either. “Or for this pretty anklet I’m currently wearing.” 

“That damn thing’s the only reason you _aren’t_ in prison!” Reyes fumes. “Do you know how many fucking _strings_ I had to _pull_ —” 

“Don’t recall asking for that either, old man,” Jesse says. His voice sounds cool, he knows, but he don’t feel that way. He feels like there’s bugs crawling all over his skin, and also about two seconds out from having a shouting match with _Gabriel goddamn Reyes_ , of all people. But that ain’t the kind of thing it’s safe to let show, so he makes himself keep acting calm, and don’t let himself look towards the door. He knows where the damn door is, if this goes bad. 

Mind, if this goes bad, where exactly on a damn Overwatch base is he supposed to hide from these two? 

Reyes snaps something real nasty in Spanish and jerks to his feet, and Jesse _don’t_ flinch because he is a grown goddamn man who don’t flinch when other grown goddamn men get angry. Reyes stalks into the living room, and Jesse resists the urge to look at Morrison. He ain’t getting any help from Reyes’ _mate_ , of all places. 

Reyes snatches up a datapad off the coffee table and stalks back over. Jesse’s hackles go up, and he does his good goddamnedest to keep looking neutral. 

_“Look,”_ Reyes says brusquely, throwing the datapad down on the table. Jesse looks down automatically, and finds himself faced with a photograph of a real small pup curled up in a much younger-looking Reyes’ arms, Morrison right beside him and clearly besotted. He ain’t looking at Reyes or Morrison or even the pup, though. 

He’s looking at the living room behind them. 

He’s seen that living room before. 

Reyes swipes a hand across the display, and another picture pops up: a pup, a little older than the last time, playing with some little tea set and a toy bear. The back of Jesse’s neck prickles. Reyes goes to swipe again, but Jesse shoves the pad away. 

“I don’t wanna look at pictures of a fucking _dead kid_ ,” he snarls, his breath coming a little too fast. He tells himself it’s just—it ain’t—

He don’t know _what_ to tell himself, after looking at a picture of Reyes and Morrison in that living room. 

“It’s _you_ ,” Reyes snarls right back, and Jesse bares his teeth without quite meaning to. 

“Fuck you!” he hisses, jerking back from the table. He didn’t agree to this shit. This ain’t what he signed up for, which—he didn’t sign up for _none_ of this. “I ain’t your pup!” 

“I know my own damn _pup_!” Reyes growls. 

“Well I damn sure don’t know _you_!” Jesse shouts at him. He feels like throwing up. 

“Gabe,” Morrison says. Reyes ignores him again. 

“You _know_ us!” Reyes insists angrily, grabbing up the datapad and waving it in the air between them. Jesse don’t look at whatever picture’s on it. “I’m your _mother_!” 

“I ain’t _got_ a mother!” Jesse snarls, still breathing too hard and too fast, feeling like he’s bristling all over, like those bugs are crawling over his eyes and inside his mouth and down his throat. Reyes gets this look like Jesse just fucking _hit_ him, and it only makes him angrier. He’s not—this ain’t—“And if I did, I damn sure wouldn’t want them to be _you_!” 

Reyes looks fucking _struck_. Jesse don’t care. If they’re his parents, well, they were shit ones, or else he’d never have wound up in the system to begin with. It’s their own damn _faults_. Somebody else would’ve tried harder, looked harder, fucking _known_ — 

“That’s enough,” Morrison says, his A voice sharp and solid and cutting through everything. Jesse has the entirely irrational desire to hide behind the man, or whimper like a fucking _pup_. “Jesse. We’re not trying to upset you.” 

“Tell that to _him_!” Jesse fumes, pointing accusingly at Reyes, who just keeps standing there with that _look_ on his face. 

“Jesse,” Morrison says again, and puts his hands on his shoulders and turns him to face him. Jesse lets him, mostly ‘cause he don’t wanna be looking at Reyes no more. He still wants to throw up. 

Morrison sounds fucking _tender_ , which ain’t helping the feeling. 

“It’s alright,” Morrison says. Jesse grits his teeth, ignoring the choked-up feeling in his throat. He ain’t this easy to upset. He ain’t _ever_ been easy to upset. “You can feel however you need to about this.” 

“I know how I _feel_ ,” Jesse spits, baring his teeth again, though he really don’t. He’d like to know how he feels, but every time he almost thinks he does he sees that damn living room in his head, or the look on Reyes’ face, or—

“It’s alright,” Morrison repeats quietly, squeezing his shoulders. Jesse could about cry, like he really _is_ a goddamn pup. He got _shot_ once and it was less upsetting than this. Ashe’d never respect him again if he actually did cry, though, so he damn sure ain’t gonna. 

He wants to go fucking _home_. Hell, he wants to go to prison, even, ‘cause at least he’d know a few people there. He’s spent a fucking week surrounded by strangers talking at him like they know him, wearing this stupid fucking ankle monitor, getting ordered around and stared at and fucking _tested_ , and he just—he can’t fucking _take_ it anymore. 

“I don’t know anything!” he says. “Whatever you want, I ain’t got it!” 

“We don’t want anything from you,” Morrison says. 

“Then why the fuck are you keeping me _around_?!” Jesse demands roughly. 

“You’re our pup,” Morrison says. “You’ll always be our pup. It doesn’t matter if you believe us or not, or if you never want to see us again.” 

“I never want to see you again,” Jesse says. Morrison . . . exhales. 

“Then you don’t have to,” he says quietly. “Alright?” 

“I want a different room,” Jesse says. “This one’s too close.” 

“Alright,” Morrison says, squeezing his shoulders very lightly before letting go of him. “Anything else?” 

Jesse tries to think about it, but can’t really. He still feels like throwing up; still feels like he could fucking cry; still feels like his skin fits wrong. But Morrison’s voice is calm and even and easy to listen to, and that . . . that helps, a little. He don’t feel so much like he’s gotta claw out of his skin, at least. 

“No,” he says finally, because he don’t know what else to say. “Can I go now?” 

Morrison gives him this real sad look, but he nods. Jesse—he don’t look back at Reyes, for all the obvious reasons. He just grits his teeth and goes. 

And he don’t think about that damn living room at all.


	2. Chapter 2

The door closes behind Jesse, and Jack turns towards Gabriel. Gabriel thinks about screaming at him, or just screaming in general. The rooms are soundproofed. Good fences make good neighbors, and all that. He could do it and Jesse wouldn’t hear. 

Jesse doesn’t want to ever see them again. Jesse doesn’t even want to be _near_ them. 

Gabriel collapses into the nearest chair, letting the datapad full of pictures clatter onto the table. Jack comes over, already rumbling some soft, soothing sound Gabriel doesn’t want to hear. His pup hates him. His pup _hates_ him. 

His pup doesn’t even _know_ him. 

“He just needs time, Gabe,” Jack says. He might believe it, but it sounds like a lie all the same. Maybe Jesse does just need time, for Jack. Jack he lets touch him, Jack he smiles at, Jack he listens to and doesn’t hiss and _snarl_ at. He doesn’t even trust Gabriel to spot him in the damn gym. 

What the hell is he supposed to do about that? 

What the hell _can_ he do about that? 

“Sure he does,” Gabriel says tonelessly. Jack kneels next to him and puts his hands on his thighs. Gabriel wants to shove him off, but the mere idea is _exhausting_. The mere idea of _breathing_ is exhausting. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever move from this chair again. Jesse never wants to see him again; might as well make it easy for him. 

“He’s a kid,” Jack says. “And this is a _lot_.” 

“Sure,” Gabriel says. He can’t even get up the energy to put malice in his tone. He just wanted—he just _needed_ —

Too much, clearly. Too much to put on a kid who doesn’t even know them. 

Fuck. What was he thinking, anyway? He should’ve known better than to push the kid. Jesse hadn’t even wanted to come to dinner in the first place, much less spend it getting grilled about his childhood. Gabriel’s only read bits and pieces of his file, still, but there’s nothing in there that made that sound like a good idea. 

He should’ve read the whole file. Maybe that would’ve kept him in line. It didn’t feel fair to, though, somehow. 

Stupid. 

“Gabe. Sweetheart,” Jack says. Gabriel looks at him only because repressing the instinct to is too much. Jack reaches a hand up to his face, and he thinks about biting it. “We just scared him a bit.” 

“I scared him, you mean,” Gabriel says. And more than a “bit”. 

“We scared him,” Jack repeats. “As far as he remembers, he never had parents. He’s got even less idea how to handle us than we do him.” 

“You were handling him just fine,” Gabe says, and it comes out bitter, of course. Can’t not, when he’s remembering opening the door and finding the two of them smiling at each other, as tentative as it had been. It’s worse because it _was_ tentative, he thinks. Jesse showed something soft to Jack, when he won’t show him anything but his apathy or anger. 

He’s jealous of that moment, which is stupid. Jesse doesn’t want to see either of them again, he said. 

He just can’t help feeling like Jesse meant him more than Jack, all the same. 

“I really wasn’t,” Jack says, giving him a weak smile. “I was this close to crying on him the whole time.” 

“He listened to you, though,” Gabriel says. “He doesn’t listen to me. Not like that.” 

“He just doesn’t know you yet,” Jack says. 

“He knows I’m the one who set him off,” Gabriel says, gritting his teeth and staring past Jack to the abandoned datapad. There’s a picture of Jesse on it—one of the last pictures of him they’d ever taken. He’s in the kitchen with Rafi, following him around with corn flour all over his overalls and a bright smile on his face. 

They’ve got a new picture of him now, if the one they snapped for his ID badge counts. He’s smirking in it, like he thinks the whole thing’s funny, and the bruise from that black eye from his arrest is still just barely visible. There’s plenty of security footage now, too, of him ambling around the base and getting the lay of the land and leaning out of windows to smoke cigarettes he’s getting God knows where. 

He looks nothing like that little boy anymore. He’s all black leather and dark denim and gang ink and skulls, the exact opposite of the kind of kid they’d been trying to raise, and of course, of _course_ he’d wound up running with a gang first chance he got, of course he had. They hadn’t been there to do anything for him, so of course he had. It’s a miracle he hasn’t done worse than gun running. 

Maybe he _has_ done worse, and was just better at not getting caught at it. 

“Either of us could’ve set him off,” Jack says. “Just because it was you this time—” 

“It’s going to be me _every_ time,” Gabriel snaps. He can tell. He barely knows this kid, but he knows enough to know that. It’s just so, so painfully obvious. “Unless we just never see him again, of course. That might happen instead.” 

“He just needs time,” Jack says. “But even if we don’t . . .” 

“If we don’t, I’m never forgiving either of us,” Gabriel says. It’s enough for Jack, that Jesse is alive. He wants to say it’s enough for him too. But that’s his kid, his pup, his _baby_ looking at him like he _hates_ him, and Gabriel can’t fucking _stand it_. 

“Come on, O,” Jack says. “It’s not your fault.” 

“He doesn’t want anything to do with me,” Gabriel says. “He doesn’t even _like_ me.” 

“He’s just scared,” Jack says. “He was trying to scare _me_ off, before you came back. Talking about being a criminal, and being different from he used to be. Told me he was gay like he thought I’d care.” 

“Stupid kid,” Gabriel mutters. Jesse hasn’t tried to scare him off at all. The things he told him, they’re just things he felt like saying at the time. He hasn’t shown him any vulnerability at all, unless yelling at him counts. “He told me he was infertile. Said his heats aren’t right.” 

“Do we need to do something for that?” Jack asks. Gabriel just shrugs. 

“He seemed to think he’d be fine as long as we left him alone,” he says. “Seems like SEP rotted his reproductive organs out even worse than ours.” 

“I don’t think any of the other SEP kids are infertile, are they?” Jack says. Gabriel shrugs again. 

“Who knows?” he says. “I haven’t exactly been keeping up with them.” It’d reminded him too much of Jesse, hearing about the other SEP brats. He supposes he should follow up on them now, though, in case there’s health concerns they don’t know about. No one would’ve bothered telling them if there were, after all. 

Their pup doesn’t _want_ them, he thinks, and a wave of grief passes through him. He doesn’t know if he’s going to be able to handle that. He doesn’t know why he can’t just be happy Jesse’s alive and damn the rest of it. Clearly that approach is working better than his is. 

“I guess it doesn’t matter,” Jack says. 

“Not like he’d let us meet any grandpups anyway,” Gabriel says flatly, and Jack grimaces. 

“Gabe . . .” 

“Jack.” 

“Have you called Alé and Rafi yet?” 

“No.” Gabriel folds his arms. He doesn’t know how he could, really. Call them up and say, “hey, remember when I blamed you for losing my pup, _well_ . . .” 

“You should,” Jack says. “They should know. And you . . . it wouldn’t hurt to have someone else to talk to about this.” 

“I told Nicky,” Gabriel says tersely. “Who’ve _you_ been talking to?” 

“Ana and Reinhardt, mostly,” Jack says, because of _course_ Jack’s been talking to people. “Torbjorn once. They had some good advice.” 

“Nicky did not,” Gabriel says, and Jack huffs out a soft laugh. 

“Doesn’t he have two litters of his own now?” he says. “You’d think he’d have some suggestions.” 

“It’s not exactly a traditional parenting problem,” Gabriel says. He hadn’t called Nicky looking for suggestions, he’d called him to panic on him while Jack had been busy arguing with the brass about the ankle monitor. He would’ve also been arguing, but even then he’d known that if they _hadn’t_ collared the kid, he would’ve been gone in a matter of days and never looked back. 

Nicky’d taken it too well, by which he means Nicky’d listened to him freak out about everything and then laughed his ass off about the vent story, the fucking asshole, and then said he could be there in two days. 

“That’s too much to put on him all at once,” Gabriel had said, like he’d actually had any room to talk about putting too much on the kid, and Nicky had snorted. 

“I wouldn’t be coming just for him, _hermano_ ,” he’d said. “But fine, I’ll wait until you’re ready to have a breakdown.” 

“I am _not_ going to have a breakdown,” Gabriel had said, like a fucking liar. 

To be fair, at the time he hadn’t thought he’d fuck it up this bad this quick. 

“It’s gonna be okay, baby,” Jack says, and Gabriel’s lip curls. He can’t think of a _damn_ thing less “okay” than this right now. 

“It is really goddamn not, Jack,” he says, then leans forward and picks up the datapad to turn it off. 

.

.

.

It’s been two days and Jesse ain’t seen hide nor hair of either Reyes or Morrison, and Amari showed up yesterday morning and showed him to a new room a hell of a lot farther from theirs. It was almost enough to make him relax, but he still keeps expecting to trip over them every time he turns a corner, so he’s been trying to avoid turning too many corners. 

At least he knows where they live, now, and can make sure to never go to that damn wing again. 

Don’t mean there’s no risk of running into them in the cafeteria, though, so he’s been zipping in and out of there as quick as he can. Today he just grabbed a couple apples, stuffed them in his pockets, and got the hell out of Dodge. It ain’t much of a lunch but it’s better than making eye contact with Reyes again. 

At least he ain’t had to do any more time in the gym. 

He ain’t had to do _anything_ , though, and it is boring as _shit_. He wants out of here so bad he can fucking taste it, and at the moment mostly what it tastes like is cigar and gunsmoke. 

He’s maybe lurking around the side entrance a bit much today, trying to figure out if there’s a way he can get out it without bringing down half the base on his head. Chances are looking slim, although chances of dying of that vitamin D deficiency are definitely increasing. 

He wonders if he could get up on the roof. That’d keep him within the bounds of the building, right? Might be worth a shot. 

Might also get half the base brought down on his head, of course. 

“No, no, I’m real impressed by your big stick, _hermano_ ,” an easy voice says, and Jesse looks down from the window he’s sitting in. There’s an A he don’t know talking to the B guard down in the courtyard, who looks annoyed. The A don’t look like standard Overwatch, but since standard Overwatch includes some pretty serious deviations, that don’t mean much. He _does_ look a mite familiar, though, and Jesse frowns to himself as he tries to place him. He’s seen so many new people since getting locked up here, it ain’t easy to remember them all. This one really sticks out, though, and he ain’t sure how he could’ve forgotten him either. 

The guard scowls and says something Jesse don’t catch, and the A laughs and walks in through the door past him, unconcerned. He’s maybe about Reyes’ age and looks like the kind of guy who belongs anywhere he wants to be, and reminds Jesse a bit of a few of the bangers he’s met. Except there wouldn’t be another gang member walking around Overwatch free and clear, obviously, unless he’d been bagged and tagged like Jesse’s been. He definitely don’t see no ankle monitor on this guy. 

He’s got a pretty big duffel bag slung over his shoulder. Maybe he’s an agent coming back from leave? 

Maybe not, Jesse thinks once he moves to the other side of the catwalk and gets a better look at the guy’s tattoos. But maybe that’s an undercover thing. 

He really does look so _fucking_ familiar, is the thing. Jesse feels like it’s on the tip of his tongue, whoever this guy is. 

Jesse takes the last drag off his cigarette and flicks the butt out the window behind him, watching the guy saunter across the lobby below. He looks like he knows where he’s going, but he don’t seem particularly concerned with getting there in a timely fashion. Jesse thinks about following him, but he ain’t _that_ peculiar yet. 

Also, it apparently ain’t gonna be necessary, since the man himself is headed up the nearest set of stairs. 

Hm. 

Jesse leans on the railing, watching the guy walk up the stairs, and the other notices him pretty damn quick. Well, he ain’t trying to be subtle, so that’s no surprise. 

“Take a picture, sweetheart,” the guy calls up. “It’ll last longer, _si_?” 

“Wouldn’t wanna break my camera,” Jesse drawls, and the guy laughs. Even his fucking _laugh_ sounds familiar. 

“Low blow,” he says, coming up beside him. Jesse looks him over reflexively, and the guy gives him a once-over in return and raises an eyebrow at the ankle monitor. Jesse shrugs and leans heavier against the railing. 

“I lead an exciting life,” he says. He’s pretty sure everybody on base knows his story at this point, but whatever. 

“Aren’t you under house arrest, _niño_? Doesn’t sound that exciting,” the guy says. Jesse makes a face at him. He’s not a fucking _kid_. 

“Whatever, old man,” he says. The guy laughs again, then reaches over and tweaks the brim of his hat. Jesse gives him an unimpressed look. 

“Nice look, _vaquero_ ,” the guy says. “How’s the ankle bracelet working out with the spurs, eh?” 

“Like shit,” Jesse says bluntly, and the guy sniggers. He sure is easily amused, Jesse thinks. 

“Wouldn’t have recognized you without it, Jessito,” the guy says, and Jesse’s brain goes blank for a second. That name—that voice, that _face_ —

“Uncle Nicky?” escapes his mouth in utter bemusement, before he can really wrap his head around the memory all that just called up. The guy _grins_ and claps a heavy hand against his back. 

“Hey, and here Gabí said you wouldn’t remember me!” he says. Jesse blinks, stupidly, and then the next thing he knows he’s getting fucking _hugged_ , which is really not where he thought this conversation was going. Like, at all. 

“I didn’t know you were actually my uncle,” Jesse says, still more bemused and sort of just . . . standing there. He remembers him now, but he’d thought the guy was from a foster family, not . . . 

“I’m not, I’m your godfather,” the guy— _Nicky_ —says, leaning back and dropping his hands down on his shoulders. He’s still grinning. “Heard you had a fight with _tu mamá_ , came to get him good and drunk.” 

“Uh,” Jesse says, with slow-dawning horror. The living room, the toys, fucking _Uncle Nicky_ . . . oh God. Reyes really is his mother. 

. . . he is going to be stuck in the gym until he fucking _dies_ , isn’t he. 

He is also maybe going to have a panic attack. He’s been trying not to think too hard for the past two days but having this piece of undeniable _proof_ standing right in front of him like this . . . 

He doesn’t know _what_ to think, with that. 

“I’ll see you later, alright, Jessito?” Nicky says. “Don’t worry about _tu mamá_ , I’ve got it covered.” 

“Okay,” Jesse says helplessly, and Nicky gives him one more hug and then leaves him there and heads off with his duffel bag of who knows what. Jesse is actually still not clear on if he’s with Overwatch or not, but he’s going to assume no, going by how old most of those tattoos looked. Who even knows, though, it’s _Overwatch_. 

He looks around, trying to remember what the hell he was even doing here, and then just . . . heads back to his room. 

It seems like a good time not to have to talk to anybody else, he thinks. 

.

.

.

Jack opens the door to Nicky, who’s grinning like the cat who got the aviary, and Gabe groans and puts his face in his hands. 

_“Te dije que no vinieras!”_ he yells from where he’s lying on the couch, and Nicky snorts. 

“Yeah, sure, and I was gonna listen to _that_ bullshit,” he says. “Obviously I was coming, _hermano_ , what did you _think_ I was gonna do?” 

“Keep your damn nose out of other people’s business?” Gabe growls. Nicky laughs. Jack has maybe never been so happy to see the man, and steps aside to let him in. 

“Now why would I do that, eh?” Nicky asks, walking over to Gabe and kneeing him in the shoulder. Gabe hisses at him. “Feisty! So you _don’t_ want any of this fine tequila I brought you?” 

“Just give me the fucking bottle, asshole,” Gabe snaps. 

“Do you need glasses?” Jack asks. 

“It is adorable that you think we are gonna bother,” Nicky says, dropping his duffel bag on Gabe’s stomach and unzipping it to pull out two of the biggest bottles of tequila Jack’s ever seen, which is saying something considering how long he’s known Nicky. “Here, _gringo_ , one of these is for you too.” 

“Thanks,” Jack says, taking the offered bottle and reflexively looking at the label. That is a very high alcohol content there. Good, that means it’ll probably actually work. It’s way too hard to get drunk these days, thanks to the SEP enhancements. 

“You realize your fucking tequila is going to fix exactly none of this, right?” Gabe says as he sits up with a grunt, glaring resentfully at the other bottle even as he snatches it out of Nicky’s hand. 

“That’s quitter’s talk, Gabí,” Nicky says, ditching his bag on the floor. “I saw Jessito coming in, he sure as hell grew up.” 

“Don’t remind me,” Gabe groans, opening the bottle and taking an immediate swig. “He’s running with Deadlock! Fucking _Deadlock_!” 

“Yeah, you’d think your boy would have better taste, right?” Nicky says. Gabe glares at him. 

“Fuck you,” he snaps. 

“Ah ah ah, less curse-y, more drink-y,” Nicky says, pushing the bottle towards him. “It’s hard enough to get you buzzed without you giving yourself time to metabolize.” 

“You saw Jesse?” Jack asks. “Where was he? Was he alright?” 

“Creeping on the side door, so probably about five seconds from a breakout attempt,” Nicky says. “We’ll see how ‘alright’ that goes for him, I guess. Hey, you should be drinking too, what’s the hold-up?” 

“He probably _will_ break out,” Gabe mutters bitterly as Jack dutifully opens his own bottle and gets down a shot glass that Nicky snorts at the sight of. “He already never wants to see us again, what’s a little jailbreak next to that?” 

“Eh, he’s a teenager, they say that kind of shit all the time,” Nicky says dismissively. 

“You didn’t see him,” Gabe says. “He fucking hates me, Nicky.” 

“Also sounds like a teenager,” Nicky says, dropping down onto the couch next to him and throwing an arm over the back of it. He takes up twice as much space as Gabe, and not because he’s any bigger than him. Jack sits down at the kitchen table and pours himself a shot. “Also, I _did_ see him, spurs and all. Called me Uncle Nicky and everything.” 

“He did?” Gabe immediately jerks all his focus to Nicky, and Jack can’t help doing the same. “He remembered you?” 

“Well, not enough to know I wasn’t _actually_ his uncle but _sí_ ,” Nicky says with a shrug. “He’s a mouthy little shit; _definitely_ your pup, Gabí.” 

“He remembered you,” Gabe says, almost wonderingly. “He didn’t recognize us.” 

“I mean, who would, come on,” Nicky says. “You two are _famous_ , Gabí. If he thought you looked familiar, he’d just think it was ‘cause he’d seen Morrison over there on the TV a thousand times.” 

“He told one of his social workers we were his parents,” Jack says. “They didn’t believe him.” 

“Ouch,” Nicky says with a wince. “Seriously? What the _fuck_.” 

“That’s what being famous gets you, apparently,” Gabe says darkly, taking a swig of tequila. 

“Maybe I should’ve brought more tequila,” Nicky says. 

“There is not enough tequila in the fucking _world_ ,” Gabe says. “He _hates_ me. My fucking pup _hates_ me. Because I can’t be fucking patient for a goddamn week! I can’t just let him come to us, no, I’ve gotta fucking _push_ him on it.” 

“It could’ve happened to either of us,” Jack says. He’d barely been holding it together, talking to Jesse over dinner. He’d meant it, that it was enough just that he was alive and alright, but actually _talking_ to him . . . 

“How in hell would it happen to you?!” Gabe demands. “He _listens_ to you!” 

“I’m the one who didn’t even _know_ him,” Jack says, throat tightening at the memory. 

“And he probably would’ve preferred that!” 

“Nobody prefers prison, _hermano_ , Jesus,” Nicky says. “Kid just needs to, you know, adjust. What’s some baby gangbanger who grew up in the system know about having parents?” 

“That he hates them, apparently!” Gabe says. Nicky rolls his eyes. 

“ _Ay_ , the drama,” he says. “ _Cálmese_ , what do you think he’s gonna do, hide from you forever?” 

“He might,” Gabe says, taking another morose swig of tequila. “It’s a big enough base, and he’s a smart enough kid. We might not see him again until he needs out of the ankle monitor. Hell, for all we know he’s figured out how to get it off himself by now.” 

“If he has, he’s taking his sweet time about it,” Nicky says wryly. “And if he’s that fucking smart, he’d leave the thing on anyway.” 

“Who knows,” Gabe says. “We don’t know our own fucking _pup_ well enough to know that.” 

“I think he’d have already run for it if he was going to run for it,” Jack says as he pours himself another shot. Nicky has shit taste in liquor, but it always does the job. “Especially if he’d figured out how to get the ankle monitor off.” 

“But we don’t fucking _know_!” Gabe says, throwing his hands up and accidentally sloshing tequila down his arm. He doesn’t seem to notice, and if he does he clearly doesn’t care. “All we know is he was running with Deadlock, he knows how to pick a lock, and he hates us!” 

“Are we having the pity party before anyone’s even drunk?” Nicky asks. “Because I need to be drunk for the pity party.” 

“Fuck you, then start drinking, asshole,” Gabe snaps. 

“Blow me,” Nicky says cheerfully, stealing the tequila from him. Jack just takes another shot as they continue sniping at each other. This is gonna be a long night, no doubt, but hopefully the venting will help Gabe. Failing that, hopefully the _alcohol_ will help Gabe. It’s not the best coping mechanism, sure, but Jack figures it’s fair in a situation like theirs. 

He really doesn’t know what the smart thing to do here is. Obviously he doesn’t want to pressure Jesse, but his O is _aching_ for their _pup_ and all his instincts want to bring Jesse home and give Gabe what he wants. Except he’s not sure even Gabe knows what he wants out of this situation, so that’s not helping either. 

Maybe the only smart thing is more alcohol, he thinks. 

“My pup doesn’t want anything to _do_ with me,” Gabe says tiredly, slumping back against the couch and throwing an arm over his eyes, and yeah, Jack thinks: definitely more alcohol. 

“He just needs time,” he says, and hopes he’s right. 

“And if he doesn’t?!” Gabe demands, shoving back upright and glaring over at him. His eyes are a little too bright. “If we fucking wait out his whole sentence and he never wants a fucking _thing_ to do with us? What then, Jack?” 

“Then he’s alive, at least,” Jack says, because that would have to be enough. 

He’s just not sure it’s going to be enough for Gabe. 

.

.

.

Jesse’s parents are alive. Jesse’s parents are alive, and goddamn _heroes_ of the goddamn _world_. 

Ashe will never let him live this down. 

Assuming he ever sees her again, anyway. He’s been thinking that he would all this time, obviously, figuring the worst case scenario would be waiting out his sentence and then running straight back to Deadlock, because _obviously_ , but . . . 

He don’t need parents. He’s a grown goddamn man. 

But . . . 

But. 

Jesse grits his teeth and locks the door of his room and drops down into his bunk, feeling all lit up and _crazy_ , like he’s had too much of something and it ain’t gonna burn off ‘til he’s climbing the goddamn walls. It’s worse than that, though, because this ain’t a drink or a drug, it ain’t gonna go _away_. His parents are alive and his parents are goddamn heroes and his parents, for some reason, seem to want him despite having full access to his file and his history and every damn thing he’s ever done wrong and every damn way he’s ever been fucked up. 

He don’t know how to feel about that. He don’t know how to _handle_ that. 

He don’t know a lot of things, right now. 

He ain’t stupid. He knew, pretty much, that Reyes and Morrison were actually who they said they were. After those photos, there wasn’t much denying it. But that last little thread of _maybe not maybe not_ just got ripped out of him and now there’s no denying it at all. Reyes and Morrison are his parents, and they want him. 

Or they did, anyway, before he went off on them like a fucking _brat_ and told them he never wanted to see them again. Who knows what they want now. They apparently wanted him despite his record, so . . . 

Jesus. They lost their pup and spent, what, fourteen or fifteen years thinking he was dead and then when they found out different, it was _him_ they found. He almost feels bad for them. Jesse’s fine with himself, he knows what and who he is and he’s okay with all of that, but for them it was probably one rude goddamn awakening. He’s sure a three year-old pup raised by parents like Reyes and Morrison would’ve been a damn sight different from a grown man who raised himself. 

Ashe would laugh at him, if she knew he cared about something like that. He rolls over in his bunk and buries his face in his pillow and wraps his arms around his head, because fuck what Ashe would think anyway, this ain’t _Ashe’s_ problem. This is him, and his entire fucking life, and his _parents_. 

He don’t need parents. He don’t care about what they think of him. He don’t . . . he don’t . . . 

He really didn’t mean to make Reyes look like that. 

Jesse ain’t a hero’s son. He ain’t anybody’s idea of a good man. He’s decent enough, he thinks—he ain’t cruel when he ain’t gotta be, and he don’t do any worse than he’s gotta do—but he ain’t _good_. He’s a criminal and a degenerate and he’d rather be back with Ashe and the others than here right now, rather be just about _anywhere_ than here right now. 

He suppose a better man would feel saved, and be grateful for it. Jesse didn’t particularly want saved from nothing, though, and he don’t know how to be grateful for an accident. If they hadn’t gotten sold out, if Reyes hadn’t been the one to question him, if they hadn’t thought to run the DNA test, if, if, if— 

This just ain’t something he was ever prepared for. Even as a kid in the system, he’d never let himself indulge in the kind of fantasies where his parents showed up out of nowhere and fixed all his problems and took him away from all the shit. It’d just felt too pathetic. Now it’s actually _happened_ , now it’s a thing that’s a real _thing_ , and he ain’t got the slightest idea how to deal with it. 

Do they really want him? Really? Despite who he is and what he’s done and what he’s like, and how _un_ like what they must’ve wanted for their pup to turn out he is?

Does he want _them_? 

That’s the question, really. Forget what Reyes and Morrison think, forget what Ashe would say, forget all the rest of it: does he want this? Does he wanna have parents, and let them act like they’re his parents, and act like he’s their son? However somebody acts like a son, anyway; ain’t like Jesse would know. He don’t even know what acting like parents amounts to, since he’s pretty sure normal ones don’t lock the fridge every night and beat your ass when they’re in a bad mood and only keep you around for the government paycheck. 

So does he wanna be here, figuring all that shit out? Go back to school like Morrison suggested, get his GED or something, pretend like he’s the kid they clearly think he is? He don’t even know what he’d _do_ with a GED. He don’t even know what he’s gonna do with _himself_ , without Deadlock. He’s gonna go crazy wasting away here with no choices and no way out. 

He could talk to Reyes and Morrison about it, he guesses, but that’d require talking to Reyes and Morrison. 

He’d rather talk to Ashe, honestly, but that obviously ain’t happening. Besides, it ain’t like he don’t know what she’d say. 

Jesse don’t cry, but all this is almost enough to make him wanna. 

.

.

.

Gabriel doesn’t cry, but all this is almost enough to make him want to. 

He doesn’t know how _not_ to cry over this. Their pup doesn’t want anything to do with them. He might actually believe them now, if they’re lucky, but only because of Nicky, not because of anything they actually _did_. The things they actually did chased him off. 

The things _Gabriel_ actually did chased him off. 

He takes another swig of tequila, and pretends the burn of it down his throat is some kind of distraction. He’s not quite drunk, but he’s almost there. A little more effort should get him to it. Nicky’s already there, the normal-metabolismed bastard, and Jack’s pretty close himself. It is a _very_ bad idea for the leaders of Overwatch and Blackwatch to both be getting plastered at once when not on official leave, but ask him if he gives a fuck. Ana can handle whatever comes up, she’s perfectly capable. The only possible reason to be sober right now would be if Jesse needed something, and Jesse very obviously does not need anything from them. 

Aside from their help staying out of prison, anyway, but even that seems like something Jesse would’ve rather dealt with than them. _Supermax_ sounds like a better idea to him than putting up with _them_ does. 

“This is fucking stupid,” Gabriel says roughly. 

“So’s your face,” Nicky drawls, stealing the bottle from him for a swig of his own. “Drink more, _hermano_ , you’ll feel better.” 

“I’m going to be sick,” Gabriel says, covering his face with his hands. His pup doesn’t like him. His pup can’t even _tolerate_ him. 

“Unlikely,” Nicky says, pushing the bottle back on him. “Drink more. C’mon.” 

“Fuck you.” Gabriel grabs the bottle. It’s more than half-empty. His head’s swimming, but he still doesn’t feel drunk enough to feel better. He’s pretty sure there _isn’t_ a drunk enough to feel better. 

Doesn’t mean he’s not going to keep drinking, mind. 

“I shouldn’t be this upset,” Jack says. There’s a slight slur to his words and change in his accent, almost enough to make him sound like the farmboy he is. He’s drunk more than Gabriel has, on account of not having Nicky to share with. He also spilled his last shot, so the room reeks of tequila—not that it wasn’t going to anyway, obviously. “What kind of parent am I, we got our pup back and I’m _upset_.” 

“You’re drunk, not upset,” Gabriel says. “ _I’m_ upset. I’m fucking _heartbroken_. He wouldn’t even look at me when he left.” 

“Again: pretty damn normal, with teenagers,” Nicky says. 

“Teenagers that’ve been running with fucking _Deadlock_ ,” Gabriel says. “Who knows what those bastards put him up to. Who knows what _he’s_ been putting bastards up to.” 

“Deadlock doesn’t traffick,” Jack says. “Otherwise, I really don’t care.” Which—fair, Gabriel thinks, that’s fair. He still could fucking cry. Not over Deadlock, just—all of this. 

He still hasn’t read that file. He probably should. 

He doesn’t know if that’d upset Jesse, though, even though at this point he’s upset him so much that one more thing probably wouldn’t even matter. Jesse probably assumes they _have_ read his file. Jack even might’ve. Gabriel just . . . couldn’t. 

He should. He should face up to all the shit their pup went through because they weren’t there for him. Every shitty foster home, every dirty deed, everything that held him back or held him down or tried to ruin him, all the shit that made him _hard_. He was such a sweet little boy, so friendly and _happy_. Gabriel can’t see a drop of him in the almost-man he’s become. That smirk is nothing like his pup’s smile, that laugh is nothing like his giggle, that snarl is nothing like his playful little growls had been. It’s like he’s a different _person_. 

He is a different person. 

“I don’t know what to do,” Gabriel says, squeezing his eyes shut as he takes another drink. They’re burning as bad as his throat. 

“There’s nothing _to_ do,” Nicky says. “Gotta let the kid ride it out himself.” 

“Until he runs right back to Deadlock and gets himself arrested all over again?” Gabriel says bitterly. “Worse, gets himself fucking _killed_ all over again?” 

“If he ditches out on the free ride that is you two, he’s a fucking idiot, Gabí,” Nicky snorts. “You two show up all shiny and flashy with the solution to all his problems, and he goes back to _Deadlock_? For what?” 

“I don’t know,” Gabriel says. “Their boss? His friends? Maybe a mate he’s lying about not having? We don’t _know_ , because we don’t know _him_.” 

“Deadlock’s probably the closest thing he’s felt to pack in his life,” Jack murmurs before taking another shot, and Gabriel grits his teeth at the thought. It’s probably true. It _is_ true, for all they know. Jesse doesn’t remember them, so when else would he have felt it? 

“He’s sure as shit not lining up for the real experience,” he says, voice turning bitter again. Or maybe it’s just going to sound that way for the rest of his life. Maybe he’ll never get over this. 

Why would he? 

“He doesn’t know the difference,” Jack says. 

“No, he doesn’t!” Gabriel snaps, slamming the tequila down on the coffee table. “We lost him—we _let_ him get lost, and this is what we fucking get for it, a goddamn gangbanger who tried to shoot one of our best friends and cares more about a bunch of fucking _criminals_ than us!” 

“Hey,” Nicky says, sounding mildly offended. 

“Gabe,” Jack says in this fucking _soft_ voice. Gabriel doesn’t want to hear it, not from either of them. 

“Shut up!” he snarls, glaring at neither of them. He’s too angry to pick a target. There’s too many targets, anyway—Jack for doubting him about Jesse being Jesse, Nicky for being _remembered_ where they weren’t, himself for chasing Jesse away, Rico for taking him with him, that fucking social worker who didn’t believe him, the tequila for just _not helping_ —

He’s going to be angry for a long time, he thinks. A _damn_ long time. 

It feels almost as bad as it did the first time, somehow. The grief is there just like he’s lost him all over again. He _has_ lost him all over again—found him just to lose him, because what the hell does Jesse care about a couple of strangers and a few strands of DNA? What’s that matter to him? 

Nothing, clearly. 

Clearly. 

Gabriel buries his face in his hands, forcing himself to breathe something like normally. Nicky shifts on the couch, leaning towards him, and Jack lets out a soft, should-be-soothing rumble. It doesn’t soothe him at all. It makes him think of Jesse fussing as a baby and Jack rumbling softly to him until he fell asleep. It makes him think of losing Jesse the first time, and Jack’s desperate attempts to keep him grounded. 

It makes him think of a lot of things, none of which are soothing at all. 

He could fucking _die_ , is how bad this feels. He could fucking die, and Jesse wouldn’t care. 

What a goddamn pathetic thought to have. What a goddamn _crushing_ thought to have. 

“I can’t do this,” Gabriel says; gritting his teeth, grinding the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I can’t. He’d be happier if I’d never said a fucking word. He’d probably _rather_ I’d never said a fucking word.” 

“Gabe—” Jack starts again. 

“I said shut _up_!” Gabriel yells at him, jerking his head up to finally glare at him. His eyes hurt, but so does everything. “What am I supposed to _do_ , Jack?! Our pup doesn’t want a damn thing to do with us! He’s not even our pup anymore! He’s practically fucking _feral_ and he doesn’t want to be any different!” 

“Gabe,” Jack says, fucking _softly_ , and Gabriel bursts into tears. He buries his face in his hands on a painful sob, shoulders shaking, and doesn’t even try to hold it in. What is he supposed to do? What _can_ he even do? Nothing, there’s nothing he can do, he’s fucking _years_ too late to do fucking _anything_. Jesse hates them, hates _him_ , and he isn’t going to magically change his mind or get over it or accept them. They don’t _deserve_ that, after losing him. If they’d just been there . . . if they hadn’t been more concerned with everyone _else’s_ families and not their _own_ . . . if they’d just _looked_ a little harder . . . 

Jack moves in close and puts his hands on his shoulders, drawing him in even closer, and Gabriel just . . . lets him. He’s too tired, too devastated, too fucking _lost_ to do anything else. Even the all-encompassing scent of his A isn’t enough to soothe this, though, and nothing is ever going to be. This is a raw wound in his chest and it’s never going to heal. There’s always going to be something wedged inside it, forcing it open and making it worse, until the wound is all he is. 

He can’t just be happy Jesse’s alive. He can’t even do something as fucking simple as _that_. What kind of mother is he, that he can’t even do that? 

He fucking deserves this. If he could just be like Jack, if he could just hold onto the fact that Jesse’s safe and alright right _now_ . . . he could’ve worked with that, _they_ could’ve worked with that, but no, he had to fucking push and push and _push_ and— 

Gabriel sobs again, letting Jack hold him closer but getting no comfort from it at all, and still can’t think what to fucking _do_. There has to be something, doesn’t there? Some hope, some chance, some small little thing? 

Of course there doesn’t. Of course there’s not. Of course the only thing he can do is keep making this worse. 

Why does he even want Jesse to remember them, anyway? The kid already knows this is all their fault, whether he remembers or not. There’s nothing _good_ that would come from him remembering for sure. 

“I can’t _do this_ ,” he chokes out again, and Jack wraps his arms around him tight. “I can’t, Jack, I—he doesn’t even _tolerate_ me, you fucking heard him! He doesn’t believe us, and he sure as _shit_ doesn’t trust us, and he’s going to leave and never look back the first chance he gets.” 

“We don’t know that,” Jack says, pushing a hand up his back; digging his fingers in tight. 

“We do!” Gabriel says. “He doesn’t want anything to do with us, what else is he going to do?!” 

“It’s only been a week, sweetheart,” Jack says. 

“It’s been long enough for him to decide he hates us!” Gabriel shoves back from him, and Jack grips his arms. He wants to hit him, but that’s a fucking miserable impulse to have and it’s not going to help any of this. “Let me _go_!” 

“Okay,” Jack says, and lets go. Gabriel thinks he might hate him for it. He shoves him again; Jack lets him. 

Gabriel scrubs at his wet face, hating all of this and both and them and fucking _Nicky_ for good measure, and— 

Someone knocks on the door. Jack turns his head towards it, obviously startled, and Nicky squints at the clock. 

“Who the fuck is knocking at this hour?” he says. 

“An emergency,” Gabriel mutters, because of course something would go wrong while they’re drunk and miserable, of _course_. He should’ve fucking known it would. 

He _did_ fucking know. He just . . . hadn’t cared. 

It’s still pretty fucking hard to care, in fact. 

“Just leave it,” he says. 

“It might be important,” Jack says, getting to his feet. 

“Then they can fucking talk to _Ana_ ,” Gabriel snaps. 

“That only works if it’s not Ana knocking,” Jack says, and crosses the room to the door. Gabe makes an irritated noise and snatches up the tequila again. At least the fucking tequila won’t open the door for bullshit emergencies. 

Jack opens the door, and goes still. 

“Uh,” a voice says from the hallway. Gabriel freezes at the sound of it. “I can . . . come back.” 

“No!” Jack blurts. “No, it’s—it’s fine. Did you need something?” 

“Not . . . really?” Jesse says hesitantly. Because it’s Jesse in the hallway, and it’s all Gabe can do not to leap to his feet and shove past Jack and _grab_ him and never, ever fucking let go again, never fucking _once_ — 

He breathes, shakily. Jack keeps talking like a rational person, because he’s Jack. 

“Not really?” he repeats. 

“I wanna talk to Reyes,” Jesse says guardedly, and something in Gabriel’s chest squeezes painfully. “If that’s, uh . . . okay.” 

Jack glances back at him. Gabriel can barely get it together enough to nod. 

“Of course,” Jack says, and steps aside. Jesse’s standing there in black leather and dark denim and gang ink and skulls, looking nothing like the pup they lost, and Gabriel’s chest squeezes even tighter at the sight of him. He _loves_ him. This is their pup, their baby, their _Jesse_ — 

“What is it?” he manages brusquely, because he will never be able to handle this, will he. He can’t _do_ this. 

“Hey, Jessito,” Nicky says with an easy wave. 

“Hey, Nicky,” Jesse says, his eyes flicking from Gabriel to Nicky. Gabriel feels it like a fucking _loss_. “I didn’t know SEP operatives could actually get drunk.” 

“Oh, yeah,” Nicky says. “You just gotta work at it. There’s math involved.” 

“If you’d worked half as hard on your geometry homework as you did at this, you’d have a decent job,” Gabriel mutters darkly. “Instead of—”

“Shhhh, Gabí, that’s enough of that,” Nicky shushes, waving him off. “He’s drunk, Jessito, don’t listen to him.” 

“I can come back,” Jesse says again. Gabriel’s pretty sure if they let him leave now, he never will. 

“No,” he says, too quick and too sharp, again. Is he ever going to be able to stop being too much at this poor kid? “What did you wanna talk about?” 

“Uh.” Jesse glances around the room, looking a little nauseous. Gabriel assumes he’s about to tell him off for something he forgot last time, because what else could he possibly have to say to them. “I just . . . I’m sorry. For yelling at you. Wasn’t right of me.” 

Gabriel . . . blinks. 

“What?” he says. 

“I’m sorry,” Jesse repeats. Gabriel stares at him in mystification, completely unable to fathom this conversation and the world in which it is happening. 

“You’re sorry,” he says slowly. Jesse grimaces, folding his arms defensively. 

“That’s what I said, ain’t it?” he says. 

“It is,” Gabriel agrees, even slower. He takes a drink, because he has no concept of how to respond to this. 

“That’s all,” Jesse says in the awkward silence, glancing around the room again restlessly. Gabriel wants to grab him, again. Sit him down and _talk_ to him. That’s probably not the best idea right now, though. He is suddenly and deeply regretting _all_ of this tequila. 

“Okay,” Jack says, because of course _Jack_ knows what to say, drunk or sober. “Is your new room alright?” 

“It’s fine,” Jesse says, still looking restless. 

“Do you need anything for it?” Jack asks. 

“No?” Jesse looks uncomfortable. “It’s a room. It’s fine.” 

“Okay,” Jack says. He puts a hand on Jesse’s shoulder. Jesse lets him, though he still looks uncomfortable. “If you _do_ need anything, you can ask anytime, alright?” 

“Yeah, alright,” Jesse says, shifting back slightly. Jack takes his hand off his shoulder. “Look, uh—that was all, okay?” 

“Okay,” Jack says again. Gabe takes another swallow of tequila. He doesn’t know what else to do. “Thanks for coming to see us.” 

“That is a damn weird thing to thank me for, Morrison,” Jesse says, and Jack smiles wryly at him. Jesse shifts uncomfortably in place, looking away, then steps back. “Anyway. Uh. I have to go.” 

“Alright,” Jack says with a nod. 

“See you later, Jessito,” Nicky says easily, tossing him a wave. 

“Yeah. See you later,” Jesse says, and vanishes into the hall. Gabriel barely resists the urge to get up and follow him. Jack watches him go, then closes the door. 

“Was that a good sign?” he asks carefully. 

“How the fuck would we know?” Gabriel asks. It doesn’t come out quite as bitter as he expects it to, though. Part of him’s still angry at himself for how poorly he just handled that, but since it didn’t end with Jesse telling him he didn’t want him to be his mother . . . well, his standards are low, maybe, but he isn’t going to complain about it. 

“Have you two even _met_ a teenager before, Jesus Christ,” Nicky says. “It’s a good sign. Drink your fucking tequila.” 

Gabriel does, because he still doesn’t know what else to do. He doesn’t know how to be a mother to a kid like Jesse, and Jesse probably still doesn’t _want_ him being a mother to him, but . . . 

Well. That could’ve gone a lot worse, at least.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr!](http://suzukiblu.tumblr.com/)


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